No news is good news

We have been enjoying some wonderful time at home. Abby has been feeling great! The biggest news is that she started walking again about a week and a half ago. Since then, she has been spending most of her days up playing. She wears her cap on her trach most of the time, so she only needs suctioning once or twice a day. Her vomiting is also down to once or twice a day. The other good news is that she has started using the potty occasionally. It was recommended that we not work on re-potty training while she was undergoing treatment, but since she's asking, we'll go with it.

Since the last post, Abby has had two rounds of chemo. The first was irinotecan, which was new to her. This was given five days in a row and was pretty easy on her other than horrible diarrhea. On Friday, she got VAC (vincristine, dactinomycin, cytoxan), which was fairly rough on her this time around. She has been pretty sick since then, so hopefully that will get better over the next few days.

On Friday, Abby also had another MRI. We don't have the results yet, but are praying that it shows no evidence of disease (NED). In order to get her trach out, one of the steps is to have an MRI showing NED. One of the other steps is a successful swallow study. Hopefully she will have one in the next week or two, though we feel she has more work to do before she will pass this step.

The other night, Abby was feeling so good that she didn't want to go to sleep. As we were laying in bed, she told me, "I can't go to sleep. I have hiccups." She then proceeded to fake the hiccups. It was the cutest thing ever. I started laughing and she started giggling. Later, as I turned over to go to sleep, she started tickling me, saying "Tickle, tickle, tickle". I reached around and tickled her back and she broke out in the biggest belly laugh. I love staying up late with her when she is in a great mood like that. It is the best thing ever to hear her laughing again.

Alexis has started giving the sweetest kisses. When they're not fighting, Abby is always giving Alexis hugs and Alexis is giving her kisses. Alexis has also learned how to blow kisses. She has lots of words as well. She can say: hello, bye, bath, more, banana, no, mama, dada, balloon, and others.